he's a lumberjack and he's okay'
by thejollyape
Summary: Established with a surprise visit.
1. Chapter 1

_he's a lumberjack and he's okay_ [part 1]

* * *

Gail finds herself humming. The silly kind of humming where there's a huge smile plastered all over her face and her feet are fighting her pride for the right to disco dance. It's the kind of humming that feels appropriate and only a little disgusting this early in the morning when waiting for her first sip of coffee. The kind of morning that only follows Saturdays that were better than pizza and beer with friends. Not that she had anything against those Saturdays, but she'd come to appreciate Saturdays with pizza and beer with a girlfriend even better. Her girlfriend, it still almost feels like a new set of words to her. Maybe not so much a new set of words as a complete and fundamental shift in meaning. As if she one morning woke up and the axis of her world had been slightly tilted. Curved, but well balanced. She scrunches up her nose a little turning the phrase over in her mind again; my girlfriend. Her humming grows louder.

The coffee machine suddenly rattles and draws her attention back to the present, it continues to clank in an alarming way that makes her wonder if it isn't about time for Holly to replace it, before it explodes or develops a will of its own. Both scenarios equally messy and potentially disastrous. In the background she's also aware of the sound of a running shower and Holly's singing. Which is something that makes the smile on Gail's lips even bigger and make her want to hum even louder, mostly just so she would drown out the horribly off-key rendition of _The Power of Love_. But that's not how life works, so instead the song itself invades her mind and as she reaches for two cups she subconsciously joins in and amplifies the chorus. The coffee maker adding a few well-timed metallic screeching sounds to officially make it a performing trio.

Gail would never admit it, because she isn't the person to admit to anything, but it's pretty close to a perfect Sunday morning routine. That is until the doorbell rings out loudly and intrusively. Shattering the cosy glow and popping Gail's good mood. Just like that, pop, all gone. A doorbell this early never meant anything good, ever. Same as phone calls after eleven pm. They twisted her insides and made her heart beat harder against her will and against her chest.

Swallowing back her discomfort she wonders whether to pull Holly out of the shower or simply answer the door herself. Looking down at the two pair of socks on her feet, two because two is always better than one when it comes to socks, the sleeping shorts and Holly's old grey sweatshirt she hardly felt presentable, but then again neither was Holly covered in suds.

Putting the cups down on the bench and leaving the kitchen Gail's open smile had been firmly replaced by a scowl that grows deeper as she gets closer to the door. The doorbell was rung a second time as she put her hand on the cold metal handle, standing on her toes to peak through the eye in the door.

Looking back at her was a weathered old man with a full beard and all the accessories to fulfil the lumberjack stereotype. A little surprised Gail took a step back and turns her head towards the bathroom door where the water was still running and Holly had moved on to a Michael Bolton medley, lending the moment a decidedly eerie quality.

Shaking her head she took another look through the peephole and was this time met by the man winking at her. "Honey, the coffee's getting cold," he hollers through the door, his voice as booming and boisterous as his appearance would suggest.

Still frowning Gail made sure the safety chain was in place before she decided to open up the door and then only a crack. "I don't know who you are, but clearly you're in the wrong place," she tells him, keeping her distance from the door, suspicion keeping her body rigid and teeth clenched.

With a look of complete surprise the man stares back at her, blinking repeatedly as if he's unsure what he's seeing. "Who the hell are you?!" he demands to know, one big hand on his hip and the other precariously balancing a tray of two cups of coffee and a white paper bag.

"I'm not the one banging on and yelling at a stranger's door eight in the morning," she tells him. "On a Sunday," she adds a head shake to emphasis his lunacy.

A fleeting look of confusion bunches his bushy brows into a frown as he takes a half-step back to look at the door and the number etched into it. "Well, girlie, I ain't in the wrong place so that must mean you are," he says knocking at the number on the door as if it'll testify to him being in the right place.

"Girlie?" she repeats, mouth falling open in disbelief. Before she has a chance to respond further the sound of the bathroom door opening and closing distracts her. Craning her head around she catches a look of Holly wrapped up in a towel, tendrils of water slowly dripping down her bare neck from her wet hair, eyes big and bright as they look back at her confused.

"Is it Mrs Crawley about the pipes again?" Holly asks moving over to the bed and out of Gail's line of sight. "You can tell her-"

"Pumpkin, is that you?" the man at the door hollers and tries to get his head in the door.

"Get your head out of the door, Sir, or I will smash it shut," Gail warns him with a determined look on her face, her shoulders tense and the muscles in her neck twitching.

Holly immediately appear in the small hallway with a look of surprise and dread on her face. "Dad?" she calls out as she moves in between Gail and the door, taking one look at the man standing outside and begins unlocking the door. Without moving away to let him in she asks, "What are you doing here?".

"Since when do I need an excuse to come see my little girl?" he asks with an undeniable hurt tone in his voice as he throws a wary look at the blonde standing behind his daughter.

Holly pulls the towel tighter around herself and tries to find the right response. His attention is drawn to her state of undress and as if he's only now noticing it his brown eyes widen and the skin beneath the greying beard infuses with a faint pink. "You're not dressed," he scolds her.

"No, dad. I was in the shower, because I had no idea you were going to show up," Holly replies pointedly and elbows Gail lightly in the side as the blonde snickers. She throws her a dirty look, but is unable to wipe the smirk of the other woman's lips.

The man cranes his neck a little and gives Gail another sideways glance, eyes slightly narrowed. "Should I come back another time?" he asks his daughter, but keeps his suspicious eyes on the strange blonde.

Undecided Holly looks between the woman inside of her apartment and the man still standing outside of it. "Ehh-of course not," she reluctantly relents and moves back to give him room to enter, meanwhile herding a scolding Gail back into the apartment.

"This is a great idea," Gail mumbles quietly, meant for Holly's ears only.

The brunette doesn't reply, but repeats the dirty look and gives her another unnecessary shove with one hand while still keeping a firm grip on the towel around her with the other.

"Are you hiding any more friends in there?" he asks as he takes a few cautious steps inside the apartment.

"Dad," Holly warns him with a look over her shoulder. She then stops in the tracks and looks up with a surprised expression on her face. "I'm not wearing clothes," she says as if it's suddenly occurred to her.

"And they made you a Doctor," Gail couldn't help herself from replying sarcastically.

Once again narrowing his eyes at Gail Mr Stewart asks, "What did you say?".

"Okay!" Holly exclaims with both hands in the air, only to immediately realise the precarious positioning of the towel and lowering them again. "You both-" her eyes dart around the room. "Sit down or...something…" she sighs. "I need clothes so..." Not looking at either of them she heads over into the corner and her wardrobes, silently cursing the open layout of her studio apartment. No walls made hiding really difficult and modesty an abstract concept.

Never once leaving the older man with her eyes Gail stalked around the room and finally sat down in Holly's reading armchair. He eyed her in a similarly wary way before almost reluctantly sitting down across from her on the sofa, as an afterthought placing the coffee and bag of breakfast sweets on the table.

"This is awkward," Gail said still eyeing her girlfriend's father.

"Gail!" Holly pipes up while gathering up a bunch of discarded clothes from off the floor.

"What?" she shot back testily.

"Bright Eyes, over there isn't wrong," Mr Stewart agrees with a nod towards Gail.

"Don't be difficult," Holly groans with her back towards them, trying to keep some modesty in front of the two people who have seen it all before, as she wrestles her way into a sweatshirt while still wearing the towel. "Dad, this is my-" she briefly stops her movement and looks over her shoulder catching blue eyes with her own. "This is Gail, my girlfriend." The last word a little heavy and surprisingly unfamiliar as it sailed off the brunette's tongue, or at least in Gail's sensitive ears. "Gail, this is my dad Harry," she finished introducing them while opening the wardrobe door cutting herself off from their line of sight.

Without saying a word the two formally introduced but still relative strangers keep watching each other with an almost identical look of heavy scepticism. Something that only helps to make Holly's gently frustrated sigh more audible.


	2. Chapter 2

"Girl-friend," Mr Stewart pronounciate loudly, breaking the silence. His voice low as he drawls and separates the one word into two.

And that's when Gail suddenly feels incredibly naked. There's entirely too much skin present and this isn't where she's supposed to be. It's...wrong. It felt right, but now it doesn't. Too much skin and no…

Holly, now completely dressed, walks over and drapes her wet towel across the back of the armchair Gail is sitting in, her forearm ghosting across Gail's shoulder in the process. It's subtle, but definitely not subconcious. "I thought we covered this already," she gently but purposely teases him. "It's one of the more frequent side-effects of being a lesbian."

The big man blushes and moves in a way that can only be described as an uncomfortable squirm. To defuse the situation and some of the tension Holly walks over and places a brief kiss on his bearded cheek, her hand lingering on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

"But you don't usually-" he starts, but fades away as he looks up his daughter. "I don't' think I've ever-" The sentence is once again left broken and open as his eyes wander over to Gail.

A loud metallic pop followed by what can best be described as a series of drumrolls performed by someone with only a theoretical understanding of what a drumroll is, drew everyone's attention to the kitchen.

"Thank god, I could use some coffee," Holly sigh and hurries into the kitchen.

Mr Stewart and Gail look at each other, still with the same weary look mirrored between them. That is until Gail breaks their silent staring contest and literally sprints after Holly.

i**i

Without saying a word Holly takes her time running the bright yellow ceramic mugs under some warm water before filling them with coffee, leaving plenty of room for both cream and sugar in one.

"Why aren't you saying anything?" Gail hisses in a loud whisper.

"I've poured coffee before. I'm almost sure you've seen me do it," she says with a teasing smile on her lips. "I didn't think it required a commentary."

"Oh, aren't you the comedienne?!" Gail's strained whispering continues. "I'm practically naked. You were naked!" she exclaims with emphasis. "Stop trying to be funny! This isn't funny!"

Taking her hands off the coffee and turning around to completely face Gail, Holly took a few steps closer, not touching but unapologetically invading the blonde's personal space. She makes her voice as gentle as a caress, "Then tell me what this is".

Gail can't pinpoint why, but this moment feels like danger. It's not a place in which she feels like she should stay even if she doesn't move. There's no silly humming in this moment right here, definitely no disco, this is adrenaline that feels like a veil shimmering across and stinging her eyes, a rough rope tied around her neck. It's the moment when things break and within a few heartbeats the only thing left will be a giant "fuck" hovering in the air. The only real question is whether that "fuck" will be spoken or left as an haunting spectre. She knows all of this with the kind of certainty that makes her arms ache.

"Here's the thing," Holly continues, still standing so close they share each other's breaths but still not touching. "My dad is going to stay. Only because he is desperate to show me he isn't as uncomfortable as I know he is. So he's going to stay, probably offer to take us to lunch. And you're right, it's going to be awkward, but he'll do it anyway, because he tries so hard". She sighs with her eyes closed, a gesture that makes Gail lick her lips subconsciously. "He's always been like that, so that's what's going to happen when we walk back out there. Which gives you two options." She swallows, blue eyes watching her throat constrict with an intensity that has nothing to do with the simple muscle movement. "Either you stay. You stay and you fight as hard as he does to not show how uncomfortable you are with...all of this. Or-"

"I run," Gail finishes the sentence for her.

"Or you run," Holly agrees. She watches Gail for a moment until she finally shrugs, the motion exaggeratedly slow.

"That's not two options. That's a problem and a solution," Gail comments sharply.

Holly sighs, her chest rising and falling with only the slightest of tremors. She shrugs again and takes a step back, reaching for the coffee again, filling both cups to the brim, leaving no room for condiments of any kind.

She picks up both mugs and moves to leave the kitchen before she even has an answer to the question she yells out, "Dad, do you want some coffee?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Here," Holly says and unceremoniously hands her father one of the yellow cups brimming with coffee.

"I brought coffee," he replies with a nod towards the styrofoam cups now standing abandoned on the table in front of him.

"This is better," she tells him as she sinks down next to him, sighing deeply as she leans into his larger frame.

"No honey, yours is just stronger," he retorts with a small smile, playfully bumping his shoulder into hers.

She raises her eyebrows, but doesn't comment, instead she takes a long deep sip of the hot liquid.

He looks at her from the corner of his eye, opening his mouth as if to say something, but then closing it again and following his daughter's actions by taking a sip from his own battered coffee cup. Swallowing with a barely quelled cough he repeats himself, "stronger".

"Wimp," she smiles at him, demonstratively taking another longer drink.

"Goose," he teases back in a barb with the edge of a spork. The warm cup still resting between his hands he leans back, extending his long legs, making himself more comfortable. Like so many times before, both as a kid and an adult she follows his leads and does the same. Their breathing syncs and they allow the silence to spread undisturbed for a few minutes. Harry is the one to finally break it, "They're usually more abstract".

Confusing furrows Holly's brow as she looks over at her father, following his gaze which rests unseeing on the coffee table. "My coffee?"

He coughs again, not because he really needs to, but to buy himself a little more time. "No, the...girlfriends," he says without looking at her.

"Ah-" she breathes out, but takes another slow sip of her drink before she continues. "And you usually give a little more warning before you show up," she answers him in a tone of voice that's faintly scolding.

"Is that the only reason they're usually more abstract?" he wonders now looking at her intently. "Are you...you're not…" he stammers.

She smiles a crooked smile at him. "Somewhere in there there's a sentence."

He blushes and rubs his beard ferociously, something that makes him appear much younger, almost boyish. "I can count on one hand the times I've been formally introduced."

A little surprised she looks at him, silently considering what he's just said. "Maybe you're right," she agrees, surprised at the truth of the comment and herself.

"I hope you know I don't…" he scratches at his beard again, shoulders close to his ears and rigid. "I know I've told you that you'll always be who you are. I'm not some backwards cretin with a closed mind and an open mouth. If that bright eyed frowner in there makes you happy…" he purposefully lets his sentence fade into a decisive nod.

She rubs his back lightly. "I know, dad. It's not…" she starts, scrunching up her mouth trying to find the appropriate words and response. "I don't know," she finally admits. "It's not a conscious thing, but-" She looks over at the kitchen. "This is stupid," she suddenly says and gets up.

i**i

It's like she doesn't understand how annoying she is, Gail thinks to herself glaring at the door frame leading back into the rest of the apartment. Like an apathetic sloth she's slouching on one of the kitchen chairs, fingers nervously running along the hem of her shorts, teeth gnawing at her lower lip.

She takes liberties and is weird. Also she snores when she's drunk and steals food from other people's plates. And she smells...Gail sighs and accidentally inhales deeply, nostrils fill with the scent of the borrowed sweatshirt she's wearing. Even her smell is annoying, all individualistic and nerdy. Her frown furrows deeply as she considers throwing off the shirt she's wearing just to get rid of the familiar smell that seems to mockingly cloud around her. Then again nudity is part of the original problem so that wouldn't exactly be helpful, which makes Gail even more annoyed. She's impulsive too. She glares at the door again, pouting.

Everything about her is so...so...maddening. She pulls the shirt halfway up over her face, burying her nose in it, breathing and inhaling and frowning. Gail doesn't do spontaneity and she definitely doesn't do surprise parental visits when she's in her underwear. She does impulsive tequila shots and inappropriate commentary sometimes meant to hurt. This?! Gail silently shakes her head. Holly is insane for even considering the idea that she...yeah, that's it, Holly is insane. She's a weird, annoyingly smelling insane person. And now that person and her dad are standing between Gail and her pants. This was not the way this day was supposed to progress.

Then suddenly for what feels like no reason, but the universe being a bully, the word "girlfriend" echoes through the blonde's mind. She's been one of those many times, but why is this kind of girlfriend different. Why does the word itself become an obsessive little echo in her mind. It's on instant repeat to the point it's ended up sounding almost wrong. The way he said it…the way Holly said it...

Emotions fuck you over, every time, and having them is opening yourself up to trouble. You think you know better, you think they've matured, but sure enough every time you invite them over they abuse your hospitality, throwing parties and wrecking shit up. Your heart ending up a broken ashtray stained in _Creepy-Living-With-His-Mother Gary's_ pizza vomit. These are facts. She's still glaring morosely at the door and almost jump a foot off the chair when it suddenly opens.

Without saying as much as a single word Holly marches into the kitchen and spots Gail sitting on a chair looking lost. She grabs hold of her hand and hauls her to her feet. "C'mon."

Reluctantly Gail gets to her feet, but she doesn't put up too much of a fight as the brunette more or less drags her back into the one big open room, leaving the kitchen behind. "And stop pouting or I'll kiss you," Holly threatens.


	4. Chapter 4

"You told me I had a choice," Gail complains later that day as they're ducking down the stairs to a small basement level restaurant.

"I changed my mind," Holly replies. "Dad asked us both to dinner- so."

"You lied," Gail accuses.

A young man barely old enough to shave walks up to them, a set of menus in his hand. "Just the two of you?" he asks politely.

"No, actually we have a third person joining us," Holly replies, giving him a soft smile. Gail on the other hand keeps her frown.

"Ah, right this way ladies," he says and grabs hold of an extra menu as he leads the way into the belly of the rustic restaurant, showing them to a small square table and graciously handing them the menus. "I'll come back in a little while if you'd like something to drink while you wait for the rest of your party."

"That'd be lovely," Holly answers him before he takes a small bow and hurries away. "No, you had a choice," she then corrects Gail as they take their seats. "But then I changed my mind and now you don't."

"That's the most basic form of lying," Gail narrows her eyes, but opens the menu.

Holly rolls her eyes at her, but doesn't take the bait.

"So Italian?" Gail eventually asks thumbing through pages, briefly looking up at their surroundings which seems to be a small family owned type of restaurant catering to a decidedly unpretentious middle class, if you were to judge by its patrons. At least the menus weren't sticky, she thought to herself as she flipped a page. "Are you Italian?" she suddenly asks looking over at Holly.

"Yes, haven't you heard of the famous Stewart clan from Naples."

"At some point, being this much of a smartass is going to get you into trouble."

Holly shakes her head and gives a coy smile. "You're sitting right next to me, so I guess you're right." The smile goes from coy to wicked. "My dad loves the tablecloths," she adds, getting back on topic, drumming her fingers against the red and white chequered object in question. "And the breadsticks."

"Your dad has questionable taste," Gail grumbles examining the kitschy table with a frown. "If they start playing Bella Note, we're leaving."

"There are some who'd say the same thing about me," she says ignoring the last comment, letting her eyelashes flutter at Gail.

"I should just get up and leave now," Gail tells her, but makes no effort to as much as move in her seat. "This is my day off you know. I'm supposed to be allowed to stay in bed, have sex and drink coffee. This-" she says and spins her right hand around in a small circle. "Meeting your dad, being...presentable and polite," she shakes her head insistently. "Not part of the deal."

"It's a compromise," she replies and lets her own eyes drift from Gail to the rest of the room, her teeth toying with her lower lip. Blue eyes watch her with intensity, but the blonde doesn't say anything in reply. "I have a colleague who makes her husband go to Star Trek conventions with her," Holly adds with a look that's faintly threatening.

"We are never getting married," Gail states with a look of true horror.

"You should be so lucky," Holly retorts before spotting her dad out of the corner of her eye and giving him a small wave.

"Parking!" he grumbles with a huff as he reaches the table followed by a breath of cold fresh air. Getting to her feet Holly greets him with a kiss on his cheek before they both sit down again.

"We just got here ourselves," she tells him patting his arm gently.

"And we're all wearing clothes this time," he comments as he shrugs out of his coat. The blonde glares at him, but doesn't interrupt him. "At least I recognise you from that thing you do with your face," he tells Gail and imitates her expression by scrunching up his eyebrows to form troubled dimples on his forehead and leaves his mouth slightly open.

Holly completely loses it and laughs hysterically at his expression.

"I do not look like that!" Gail exclaims indignantly doing exactly that thing with her face. "You told me he was as uncomfortable as I was," she complains as she turns to Holly, having dropped all sense of tact or manners. "That's the second lie today."

The brunette takes off her glasses and wipes at the tears streaming down her face, trying to collect herself enough to form an answer. But Harry beats her to it.

"No lie, I'm definitely uncomfortable," he says scratching a little at the base of his wide neck. "It's not every day you-" he stops with a low hum. "You know." He coughs again, fingers playing with the hem of the tablecloth. "This is nice," he adds completely unrelated to anything else. His fingers continue to nervously play with the fabric.

Holly loses it again and is thrown into another fit of laughter, Gail just glares at her.

"Could have been worse," he then says nodding his head slowly. "I could have walked in on you two having sex. My former mother-in-law once did that and long story short- we ended up moving away from Calgary."

Gail's mouth falls open at the overshare.

"Don't look so shocked, she's still alive," he comments with a straight face. "Mostly."

"Dad!" Holly scolds him with a kick to the shin under the table. He doesn't say anything, just shrugs.

"Are you ready to order?" The waiter took that moment to cheerfully interrupt.

"No," Holly smiles around her tears. "Give us a little longer," she tells him.

The waiter looks at her with concern, eyes briefly flickering between the other two at the table, uncertain of what do, but since neither of them seemed bothered by the woman's tears he decides to leave it for now. But, he tells himself, he'll keep an extra eye on the table just in case, things didn't look bad...but he'd keep an eye on them anyway to make sure she was fine. You never knew with some people. "Okay then," he finally says and backs away slowly.

Ignoring the interruption Harry looks over at Gail again, this time with a more serious expression on his face. "So what is it you do, Bright Eyes?"

"Well, Lumberjack Larry-" Gail retorts pushing her shoulders back defiantly. "I'm a Police Officer."

His dark eyes widen a little at the revelation and he spares a brief glance at his daughter who seemed to finally have calmed down. "Hard work?" he asks a serious expression on his face.

She stills for a moment and some of the defensive air seem to fade a little. "It can be," she admits. "But it's.." she starts without really knowing what she wants to say or how she could even begin to explain what she does and why. She silently eyes him for a moment, unaware of how closely Holly meanwhile watches her. Words like 'home' and 'expectation' both surfaced in Gail's mind, but neither seem good enough on their own. "I like it," she ends up answering in a gross, but frank, oversimplification.

"Been on the force long?" he continues his subconscious cross-examination. Even if his daughter said she was happy, or more importantly because she was happy, he needed to know more about the person who seemed to have an influence on those feelings.

"A few years," she reveals, her shoulders sinking even further down from their original defensive position as they continue talking about something she felt was her safeground. "Runs in the family," she volunteers without having her arm twisted.

"It can be hard to step out of those old tracks," he comments with compassion, leaning forward slightly.

She shrugs. "I did," she says. "For a while. But then I realised that rebelling wasn't worth the price of losing out on something I thought I'd be really good at."

"Have you come to a decision?" the waiter appears once again and interrupts.

With a look of frustration Gail turns towards him. "You're very persistent."

"Eh-" he opens his mouth looking uncertain. "Thank you?"

"Fine, I'll have the Lasagna," she says just to make him go away again.

Harry presses his lips together, looking between the menu and Gail. "Me too."

"Make that three," Holly agrees. "And mineral water for all of us I think." Both Gail and her father give a nod of approval.

The young man swallows visibly and hesitantly asks, "Will that be all?". He only looks mildly alarmed as Harry opens his mouth to reply.

"And extra breadsticks if you have them," he hums happily.

"I'll get right on it, sir."

"So, where were we?" Harry asks as the young man disappears into the kitchen.

Under the table Holly puts her hand on Gail's leg, letting her thumb caress the denim material covering it, scratching gently. The blonde didn't visibly acknowledge the touch, but she removed her crossed arms from her chest and leans back. "I think it was my turn," she smiles predatorily at him. "What is it you do?" she asks and manages to make it sound more like an accusation than a question.


End file.
